Black Sheep
by abatude
Summary: Cameron Morgan has been on her own since she was twelve, communicating with her mother covertly for five years. Now, it's finally safe for her to come home, but huge surprises are waiting for her at Gallagher Academy. Zammie!


A groan escaped my mouth as I rolled over from the position I had been in for hours. Sleeping was always the most difficult part of my daily life. I'm positive that if I didn't become delirious from lack of sleep, then my eyes would never close again. But I did. Become delirious, that is. I've trained myself to go about four days without sleep, but as soon as I go over 96 hours, confusion sets in. That's why, instead, I stay awake for 72 hours, sleep for 8 hours, then repeat. I stay up for a long period of time, and then refresh with a short sleep. It's worked for years, and I'm not planning on changing that anytime soon.

I lifted my head from the wooden floor. I didn't sleep in a bed. I don't think I would, even if I had one. I wasn't done training. I was never done training.

I was in Boston, I had been for a few weeks. Before that, I had been in New York, city hopping since I was in California. I'm seventeen years old, but I've been on my own since my father died, five years ago. We were visiting DisneyLand, when right in front of my eyes, my father dropped dead. And I ran. I knew that both of my parents were spies, of course. I figured out that much when I was six and my mom taught me how kill a man with my Polly Pockets. I had run from the people who killed my father, and trained myself, unable to go to the school that my mother was the headmistress of, because it wasn't safe until the the Circle of Cavan, the organization who killed my father, thought I was dead.

I sat up from my position on the floor and rummaged around the small, dark room until my hands fell on my duffel bag. It contained a small amount of clothing, coins, and thirteen unregistered credit cards that change numbers with each swipe. And, of course, my laptop. I opened up the thick Dell, and plugged in my external hard drive and IP rerouter before I scanned my fingerprint on the homemade security system. It took me ten minutes to log in, since paranoia was my best friend, but once I was in my account, I started to hack into the CIA.

Hacking into the CIA database without a trace took me awhile to learn. I had to get in contact with my mother, somehow. So I went to the drop site that she showed me when I was nine, and posted in code about what had happened. She responded with instructions of how to get the special emergency credit cards that I've been living off of for five years. Hacking into the CIA took ten hours the first time I did it, but now it took me under two. As soon I was in, I waited for current content to load. Even though I had modified my laptop to never need to be plugged in or charged ever, (and I mean _ever _as in _forever_), my computer still lagged a bit.

While that was loading, I pulled up a new browser window and typed in the address of the site that Mom and I communicate over. Over five years, we've had about 20 posts. It was lonely, not being with my Mom at her school like I was supposed to be, but until the Circle of Cavan was defeated, I would't be able to come home. They wanted me dead more than anything, since I was a loose end they've never been able to catch.

The last time that Mom had posted on the website was three months ago. _Getting close,_ she had written in code. _Three members left. _She was referring to the mission that CIA agents had taken up, of course. They were taking the Circle down, and once they completed the mission, I'd finally be able to go live at the Academy with my Mom.

The page loaded, and there was a new post.

291 3941893 432971 548271392 528374391284 7182 137481 5872847 18759271 48357817 418171943 1981273 1984371 000

My jaw dropped as I read the message over and over.

The words didn't register until the tenth time that I read it.

_Mission complete. Circle is disintegrated. Come home. Love you. _

My immediate thought was to pack as quickly as I could and run all the way to Virginia, but I had to be careful. For all I knew, the Circle leaders had been posting on that website for the past years. So, I switched over to the CIA database and began reading the new report on Operation Pigeon.

Sure enough, the mission had been completed. I had given my Mom descriptions of the men and woman who killed my father, and they used that information to infiltrate and identify every member of the Circle. And it was finally over. I could go… home?

I have read everything and anything there was about the Gallagher Academy. I had been there twice before the incident with Dad, but those visits were short. But I've been training myself every second of every day for five years, and there was no way that I'd skip over the place that my Mom called home.

I knew the history, I knew the teachers, I knew the students. I knew every recorded secret, I even memorized the extremely top secret blueprints that revealed over a hundred secret passageways.

I pulled up the Gallagher Academy page in the CIA database once I finished reading about the mission. I'd already memorized everything about the Academy, but I had to check for new news.

"Blackthorne Exchange" were the first words to greet me when the page loaded. I frowned. I knew the Blackthorne School for Boys, secretly a training academy for assassins. My father's best friend, and current covert operations teacher at Gallagher, had gone there.

The Blackthorne Exchange was apparently the exchange of fifteen boys going to the Gallagher Academy for a semester, to expose the 100 students of Gallagher to members of the opposite sex. I scoffed.

One of the good things about being on your own for five years in the real world was that I had experience with boys, like these girls were. I've befriended, and kissed, boys. Of course, that was to get something out of them, information, gadgets, passwords, but still. I was not unexposed to boys. I wasn't really unexposed to anything. I've been on my own. I've gotten tattoos, something that my mom would freak out about when she saw, I've been attacked and nearly killed many times, and I've killed other people many times.

I had a very different take on the world than I did when I was twelve. I was tough. I had to be, if I was going to grow up without anyone. I controlled my emotions with ease. I learned to not dwell on the past.

I clicked on the names of the boys who were exchanging with Gallagher. I knew the names already, I memorized them around a year ago when Joe Solomon started teaching at Gallagher and I uncovered Blackthorne. One name stopped me, though. _Zachary Goode_.

Zachary Goode was the son of Catherine Goode, the woman who very actively tried to kill me for two years, until she was shot by a CIA agent in Arizona. I clicked on his CIA profile, and read over the information I already knew.

Zachary Jay Goode was classified as loyal to the CIA, but my familiar paranoia kicked in. There's no way he's not part of the Circle. Maybe he was the last remaining part of the Circle, one that the CIA didn't suspect. And I knew what I had to do. I had to take down Zachary Goode myself.

Three cab rides, one sketchy airplane ride, and seven hours later, I was standing in the trees that surrounded the Gallagher Academy. I knew that it would be easy to just waltz up and knock on the guard's office at the front gates, but that's what they'd be expecting.

According to my internal clock, it was 7:27. The summary of the Blackthorne exchange said that my mother would be in the dining hall, introducing the Blackthorne Boys in ten minutes, and that was my queue to get into her office.

The front gates were 200 feet to my right. My excessive memorizing paid off, though, because I knew the camera intervals, I knew the guard rotation, I knew the small stone on the wall that, when pressed, opened a small passageway that would lead to a classroom across the hall from my mother's office.

I waited 30 seconds for the camera intervals to change, and rushed to the stone, pressing down. I thought that it didn't work for a second, but a small patch of grass slid aside to reveal a ladder leading down into darkness. I grabbed my duffel and hopped down it, seconds before the grass slid back, covering me in darkness.

I pulled out a small flashlight from my pocket and clicked it on. I was in one of the passageways used for the underground railroad. It was filled with cobwebs, and looked like it hadn't been used in years. I knew where I was going, though, so I didn't dwell on the fact that a spider the size of my hand just scurried up the wall.

It took me 4 minutes and 18 seconds to get to the end of the passageway. There was another ladder there, and I knew that this one would climb up to behind a filing cabinet in a classroom. I climbed and ended up on a small platform behind the cabinet, searching the walls for a button or lever to open the secret door. I finally found a small button, and the cabinet swung open.

I was in an empty classroom, with organized desks and a newly erased chalkboard. The clock in my head said that it was 7:33, and I knew that I had two minutes to get into my mother's office before she would come back. I closed the filing cabinet and exited the classroom.

Her office was across the hall from me, and I quickly made sure no one was out while I crossed the hallway. No one was there, of course. It was dinnertime.

Mom's office had a simply keypad lock system on it. I knew the password; 294572, from my hours of hacking into the surveillance system at Gallagher. That was the only time that I got to see my mother, but she never saw me. Well, with the exception of six photos snapped by agents, she hasn't _really_ seen me in five whole years. I got into my mother's office quickly with 1 minute and 50 seconds to spare. I sat on the leather couch, putting on a cool face, but secretly freaking out.

I hadn't changed much appearance-wise. I still had the same long, dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, and small build. The only big thing that had changed about me was the ring in my nose and the seventeen tattoos covering my body. They were all small, and totally not obscene. I got them to represent each year of my life. My 12th one was my father's name, Matthew, and my mother's name, Rachel, written small on my left wrist. I had small symbols everywhere, but the one that mom was sure to see was the medium sized moon tattoo on my right bicep. It was the second biggest tattoo I had, and I got it representing the time that I was 13 and finally owned up to my fear of the night.

The biggest tattoo that I had was on my back, specifically my left shoulder. It was the number 12, in roman numerals, XII. It was a reminder that everything can change in a second, that my life was changed forever when I was 12, and can change forever again, just as easily.

My hands were shaking. I had exactly one minute until my mother would walk in. I was wearing black jeans, black nikes and a black tanktop that, as I mentioned, would show off my tattoos. My hair was in a ponytail, washed and clean. I hadn't been living on the streets for five years, I did have those special credit cards. I took showers daily.

Fifteen seconds. I stopped my shaking hands and make sure that my position on the couch looked casual.

Ten seconds. I could hear footsteps, from my guess, a 130 pound female and 190 pound male.

Five seconds. I heard more footsteps. There were three people, one obviously being my mom, Joe Solomon, who was definitely dating my mother, and a student maybe? I resolved that the student would be Zachary Goode, since he was basically Joe's sidekick.

One second. I heard my mom beeping in the code and the conversation that the three people were having.

"I know she saw it," I heard my mother say as she started to open the door.

"When do you think she'll show up?" Joe Solomon asked, as my mom reached for the lights.

"I'm already here." I said confidently, just as my mother hit the light switch.

The three figures froze in the doorway, obviously shocked.

"Cammie?" My mom whispered, after what seemed like forever.


End file.
